


Mr and Mrs Lawton

by alamorn



Category: Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Mentioned Street Harrassment, Mr and Mrs Smith AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-08-29 08:16:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8482213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alamorn/pseuds/alamorn
Summary: Girl meets boy. Girl marries boy. Girl and boy are hired to kill each other. Girl and boy kill a lot of other people instead.
It's a Mr and Mrs Smith AU. You know whether you like that or not.





	1. Chapter 1

It had been a good week. A couple of armed robberies — jewelry stores — and a few creepy men taken out and gently told that, no, calling a twelve year old “sugartits” was not acceptable. Harley liked having that kind of talk. She liked the sound they made when she took their knees out with her bat.

Anyway, she and her girls were having good luck. They’d been out and away long before the cops showed up each incident the past week, and one of the jewelry stores they’d hit had been doing their own illegal side work. Several thousand dollars worth of uncut, unmarked, high quality diamonds. Easy to move, and a total surprise to Harley and Selina. Pam seemed impossible to surprise, but she hadn’t _known_ , which was pretty much the same thing.

So Harley went to the farmer’s market on Saturday, because it was a nice day, and she felt like fresh fruit, and she hadn’t been on the news anytime recently, so she didn’t need to lay low.

The apples were beautiful in the early blush of fall, and she was feeling seasonal, so she started to fill her bag when a commotion on the other side of the street caught her attention.

It caught the owner of the stand’s, too, so Harley walked away without paying. Stolen fruit was always sweeter, anyway.

She sauntered over to the edge of the quickly forming crowd, chomping on one of her apples. Crisp and sweet, just like she’d expected. There were squash everywhere, and two men in the middle of the crowd, along with a girl huddling back out of the way.

One man was on the ground, having passed through the table first. White, too skinny for his jacket, ratty facial hair, maybe early twenties. A pickpocket, probably. She chewed contemplatively as the crowd murmured around her. This was Gotham, after all.

The other man was much more interesting. Or at least less expected, in any crowded Gotham area. Black, well built, shaved head, full beard, and a sweater that had been made with a great deal of love and very little skill. He’d put himself between the pickpocket and the girl — family, or a Good Samaritan? — but he was holding his ground, not saying anything or making any threatening moves.

Trying to deescalate after throwing a pickpocket through a table?

She took another bite of her apple. Interesting indeed.

After another moment, the pickpocket scrambled to his feet and darted off through the crowd without trying to save face. He _did_ try to snag her wallet as he went, but she sidestepped his reaching hand easily.

When she looked back up the second man was watching her. She beamed at him and strode forward to offer him her hand.

“Harleen Quinzel, but you can call me Harley! That was a bit of genuine Gotham nastiness, wasn’t it? Do you need any help getting your stuff back together?”

He tilted his head at her, but took her hand with no more than a quirk of his eyebrow. He had a nice hand, and a nice handshake, warm and firm, his hands calloused. “Floyd. This is my daughter, Zoe.” The girl bounced forward, not seeming ill affected by what had gone down. Harley approved. “I think we’re fine, Ms. Quinzel, thank you. He didn’t manage to get anything.”

There was a mutter from the stall owner, picking up the squash from where it had rolled. It was along the lines of, “And who’s going to pay for all of my squash?” but Harley was hardly going to do it so she didn’t pay much attention.

She half expected Floyd to offer, but he just spared half a glance at the footing and said, “Come on, Zoe, we still have to get the beets.”

That was the sort of self interested rudeness Harley liked best, so her smile just got wider, and she decided to tag along for a moment. “You know, Floyd, most people wouldn’t throw a pickpocket through a table and then finish shopping.”

He looked at her like he was trying to figure something out. Then a smile quirked his lips and was gone just as fast. “I guess I’m not like most people.”

Zoe snorted, loudly, from his other side. Oh, Harley was _curious_. The temptation to steal his wallet so she could have an excuse to see him again made her fingers tingle.

But even if she was good enough that he wouldn’t throw _her_ through a table, she wanted to leave on good terms. She wanted to see him again.

It was a strange thought, and it made her pause. “Well, good luck with the beets,” she told him and peeled off to take a moment to process her thoughts. She hadn’t been interested in a man since she left the Joker bleeding out with a screwdriver in his neck.

But there was something very intriguing about Floyd, and Zoe seemed like a good kid. If she’d gotten his last name, she could keep an eye on him, manufacture another meeting, but it seemed like it would have to be genuinely up to chance.

How disappointing. Well, there would be another few weeks of the farmer’s market before it got too cold, and she could always use fresh produce.

 

That night, instead of her traditional face paint, Harley pulled on a mask she’d spent the day painting. It fit close to the face and didn’t slip. The eyeholes were big enough that it didn’t interrupt her peripheral vision. The face she’d painted on was a grinning Harlequinn with long, sharp teeth.

Pam and Selina exchanged a look. “What’s that for?” Selina asked, stretching her arms above her head.

“I just don’t think I’m scary enough, you know? I think it’s the baby face. And this is nice and tough.” She knocked on it to prove her point. The only negative about how close it fit to her face was that it didn’t displace force at all. But it would keep her from getting cut up. Or recognized. Having to dodge cameras all the time was getting really annoying.

“Okay,” Selina said. “Unrelated, but how was the farmer’s market?”

“Oh it was good. Got some nice apples.” Harley couldn’t help the grin behind her mask. She was probably being obvious, but that was fine. She trusted her girls as far as she could throw them, but they had an arrangement. They wouldn’t pry more than that.

 

With the mask, she was less careful of exposure, and the news anchors quickly named her, as they named all of the masks in Gotham. The Harlequinn. Unoriginal, but what she’d been aiming for.

The coverage on the Harlequinn was always hilarious. She and her girls caused huge amounts of property damage and had a growing reputation for retribution beatings for men involved in domestic abuse, trafficking, or general low level creepiness, but they were all thin, athletic women in tight clothes. Watching news anchors trying to figure out how to talk about them was one of Harley’s favorite pick-me-ups.

And then they lost coverage to some asshole with good aim. _Deadshot_. Whatever. He popped up now and again, making impossible shots. And the night they knocked over one of the most tightly protected banks in Gotham he made the most impossible shot of all, and assassinated the mayor in a locked room with a single shot.

Harley had to admit she was impressed, but the fact that no one was talking about her, frankly, beautiful heist, kind of hurt her feelings.

So when she was on the roofs later that week and she spotted a man in black and red, she let him take his shot and tripped him when he started to run.

“You hard up for money or something?”

His face was covered in a weird white mask with a red sight for an eye. He didn’t say anything, just tilted his head at her.

“I’m only asking because you’ve been dormant for a while and now you’re taking jobs left and right, not letting the heat die off at all. You _are_ Deadshot, right?” She offered him a hand to help him up but he just braced his arms behind him and stared up at her. “Of course you are, who else would wear such a silly mask?”

He grunted.

“I only ask because you keep stealing the spotlight, and I just would really appreciate it if the people of Gotham got to ooh and aaah over one of _my_ exploits this month.”

He laughed, but bit it off quickly. “You want to trade schedules?” he asked, the laughter still in his voice.

“You know, that’s a really good idea, Mr. Shot. How about next week, you take a break, roll in some of that money you’ve been earning?”

He nodded slowly, like he was thinking about it. Then he swept her feet and did something showy and athletic that ended with him on his feet and her on her ass. “Pass,” he said, and fired a grappling hook and was gone.

She heaved a sigh, stood, dusted off her shorts. “What a rude man,” she said to herself, and went and beat a man till he pissed himself.

 

Just about when she’d given up on running into Floyd ever again, she bumped into him at a bar. She was a _little_ drunk and a _lot_ horny, so when she literally bumped into him while she ordered another drink, she felt her face settle into a smile she’d heard described as _predatory_.

He was wearing a button-up with the sleeves rolled up and a vest. She threw back her shot and felt the heat of the vodka crawl down her throat and settle in her stomach. “Floyd!” she said, sliding her hand up his arm. “What are you doing here?”

He looked around, as if measuring his surroundings. It wasn’t quite a dive bar, but it wasn’t quite anything else, either. There was music playing loudly from bad speakers, and the lighting was dim to hide the stains on the floor. But there were places to sit, and they actually made mixed drinks without looking at you funny, so Harley’d been to worse places. He snagged his bottle of beer and turned to face her. “Sometimes, I like to have fun.”

She hooked his arm with hers easily, since he hadn’t shaken her hand off, and led him over to a table in the corner. “Somehow, I didn’t think this was your idea of fun.”

He shrugged. “It can be good to remind myself. Are you with someone? Am I stealing someone’s seat?”

“I’m not,” she said, and let her eyes go hot and hungry. “But I’d like to be.”

 

They fucked in the bathroom.

 

For all that the setting was disgusting, it was some of the better sex Harley had ever had, so she slipped her number into his pocket before disappearing.


	2. Chapter 2

She didn’t actually expect him to call her — he didn’t seem the sort to follow up on a screw in the bathroom. He had a kid, after all, and wore old man sweaters, and drank beer because he liked the taste, but he called her the next day.

Honestly, it was the first time someone other than Pam or a robot had called in _months_. She barely knew how to talk on the phone anymore. But he was charming, with just the slightest bit of awkwardness that put her at ease. He was easy to talk to. So when he said, “Dinner, Friday night?” she cursed her full schedule of mayhem and said, “I’m doing something Friday. Could you do Saturday?”

“Mm, no, _I’m_ doing something Saturday.” There was a moment where neither of them spoke, and she listened to his breathing over the phone. “Sunday brunch? I know it’s not a traditional first date, but I’d like to see you again.”

She hugged herself gleefully. “I’m not a traditional girl. Do you have a place in mind?”

That date went well, and the date after it, and the next dozen after that. Before she knew it, she had a toothbrush at his apartment, and she picked Zoe up from school regularly.

She knew he’d been married before, and wasn’t keen on being married again, but after a year and a half of dating, four months of spending more time at his place than hers, and going to three separate parent-teacher conferences for Zoe when he was too busy, she figured they should at least talk about it.

Harley was never one to beat around the bush, so once she decided, she acted. It was a school night, Zoe had gone to bed early with a headache, and they were cuddling on the couch. She was watching a true crime documentary — a guilty pleasure — and he was reading some fantasy novel that made him laugh regularly. Zoe made him read a book a month with her, “so they’d always have something to talk about” but never let him pick. When she’d gone through a phase of post-apocalyptic YA, Floyd had enlisted Harley’s help in guiding the next choices.

Floyd wore reading glasses on the end of his nose. Combined with his preference for soft sweaters, it made him look like a librarian. Harley found it very endearing, and took a moment after pausing her documentary just to look at him.

He looked up. “What is it?”

In for a penny, in for a pound. “Do you want to get married?”

He tensed a little, and she was reminded of how heavily muscled he was under his librarian sweater. “That’s a terrible proposal, you know.”

She made a face at him. “That’s because it’s not one. I like you, Floyd. But I know that you’ve been burnt before, and I’m satisfied with what we have. I just wanted to put it on the table.”

“Is this one of them psychologist things?” he asked, finally putting his book down and turning to face her entirely. “Open communication, all that junk?”

“You know it, babe. In the spirit of full disclosure, my schedule’s never gonna get less weird, and I’m never gonna be a good housekeeper.”

“I have been to your apartment,” he teased. “Well. I can’t say there isn’t some appeal. My schedule’s never gonna get more normal, either. But I guess I’m used to having you around.”

“Oh, well, in _that_ case —“ He cut her off with a gentle kiss.

“I’m not saying no,” he told her. “Let me talk to Zoe first.”

She pressed another quick kiss to his lips. “Okie dokie.”

 

They got married the next summer. It was a small wedding, since neither of them liked to bring work home, or talk about their family much. Zoe cried. Harley didn’t wear white. On their brief honeymoon, she talked him into going skydiving more easily than she expected, and they had sex in a lot of new and exciting places.

They settled into an easy rut from there. Harley kept up with her girls, but she scheduled jobs around PTA nights. The only problem was…

Being married was kind of…

She felt really bad for even thinking it. Getting married was her idea. But, she was…

Bored.

There. She said it. Floyd was great, really. He was sweet, and attentive, and really, just very good in bed. Or on the table. Or against the wall. And he never scared her, or raised his voice, not even when she was a brat, or Zoe brought home a bad grade. It was just…

She was scheduling jobs around _PTA meetings_ , for God’s sake. She was cooking regularly. She had to be careful of the fights she got into, because if she came home with injuries, he would _notice_.

It was _stifling_. She hadn’t realized how much having her own place had meant. How much being able to not see him for a few days or weeks had meant.

As it was, she had weapons stashed around their apartment, but only where Zoe couldn’t possibly stumble over them, so mostly that meant in the furniture. She hadn’t even gotten high _once_ since she moved in, and it wasn’t like she _missed_ it, but she missed having the option.

And she could tell Floyd was chafing too, that he was regretting it the same way she was. So she threw the idea of couple’s counseling out there, mostly out of obligation. It was her damn stupid idea that got them in the mess, she had the responsibility to try and work their way out.

Couple’s counseling was…Well. Harleen had been a different sort of counselor, but she was not impressed with the woman they were seeing. She asked stupid questions like, “On a scale of one to ten, how happy are you?” and, “How often do you have sex?” and “How did you first meet?”

And the worst part was, she and Floyd couldn’t even agree on the stupid answers. They didn’t look at each other as they left, and they didn’t talk on the way home, and they didn’t talk the next day, and that night, Pam slid her a phone with a name and a number displayed and said, “We can’t afford not to take this job.”

Two _million_ dollars, for one man, one _Floyd Lawton_ aka _Deadshot_ aka _her husband_. There was a rushing in her ears. She couldn’t hear what Pam was saying, as she flipped through the phone. Picture after picture of Deadshot, Deadshot kneeling, Deadshot running, Deadshot taking off his _mask_ , Deadshot walking around with _Zoe_ , Deadshot walking around with _her_. 

She sat down abruptly, stomach suddenly too heavy to bear by herself. “I didn’t know,” she kept saying. “I didn’t know. How did I not _know_?”

Selina knelt in front of her, trying to catch her gaze. Harley squeezed her eyes shut. “He’s been lying to you,” Selina said. “He knows who you are. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You have to kill him. I’m sorry.”

When Harley opened her eyes, Pam was staring mercilessly down at her. Harley licked her dry lips. “I’m not,” she managed. “If he _knew_ — I’ll kill him tonight and be happy of it.”

Pam nodded. “Good to hear. Now…”

Harley didn’t absorb a single thing she said, but sat consumed with thought, recalculating every minute of the last five years. Did he know right from the start? Or was it later? He had touched her, had told her he _loved_ her. The horror reared up in her. Was it all lies? Even their lazy mornings in bed, talking quietly about nothing?

 

She didn’t think about getting Zoe out of the area until she was almost…she hesitated to call it _home_ now that she knew it was all a lie, but it was the only place she had lived for years now.

No matter what was going on with her and _Deadshot_ , Zoe was an innocent bystander. She didn’t deserve to find her father dead in the morning, and her step-mother missing.

Could Harley send her to a friend’s? There was a girl she’d been seeing, and Floyd hadn’t let her spend the night, but Harley had always been the cool one, by virtue of being young and frank about drugs and sex, in a way that made Floyd groan and roll his eyes, and had scandalized eleven year old Zoe. At sixteen, Zoe took advantage of that frankness often. If Harley told her she could spend the night with her girlfriend, Zoe would be out of the house before she could blink.

It ended up being moot. Zoe didn’t come home.

Floyd did.

Harley had arranged herself at the kitchen table so she had a view of the door, and a knife tucked against her leg. By the way Floyd cleared the angles before stepping inside, she knew he knew.

“Hi, honey,” he said. “I’m home.”

She considered saying something clever and thinly veiled, some spy versus spy bullshit, but her heart felt terribly heavy and she couldn’t stand the idea of drawing it out. She couldn’t stand the idea of killing him, either, but she _had_ to. And besides, he had known.

She threw the knife, brutally fast, aimed straight at his heart. He dodged and it twanged hard into the door.

From behind the couch, she could hear him tearing fabric. Getting a gun out? She darted into the living room and hurdled the couch before he could finish. The apartment wasn’t big enough for cat and mouse, and she didn’t have the patience, anyway. She didn’t land on him, unfortunately, and he swept her legs before she could get her balance. Then he straddled her, pinning her arms to her sides with his legs.

“You know,” he said conversationally, as he screwed a silencer onto the end of a pistol, “I’ve always thought the Harlequinn was a stupid identity. And those colors really do nothing for you.”

She rolled her eyes and swung her legs up to lock her ankles around his throat and yank him backwards. Five years, and he still forgot how flexible she was.

“It’s not supposed to look _good_ , it’s supposed to be distracting. No one thinks of a tiny blond when the robber’s in a clown costume,” she complained as she pinched his wrist to make him drop the gun. “But I wouldn’t expect someone who doesn’t get his hands dirty to understand something like that.”

He scoffed and head butted her. He had a very hard head, but she did too, so she just blinked off the stars. “Only you would think a hitman keeps his hands clean. Do you have any idea how many people I’ve killed?” he complained as he jabbed at her face.

She ducked and lunged, caught him around the middle and brought him to the ground once more. There, she pulled a knife from her boot and held it to his throat. “And when’s the last time you killed someone with your hands?” she asked, as blood started to bead at the tip of the knife.

She couldn’t do it. She tried to bear down. Two _million_ dollars. He’d _known_. And she couldn’t do it.

Disgusted, she threw the knife away. A pressure she hadn’t even noticed against her back, right above her kidney, disappeared.

She let her weight rest heavily on his stomach, legs sprawled on each side. She searched his eyes for an answer, anything, that would explain what was going on. He was searching her back, hand sliding up to cup the ball of her heel.

She felt her face twist, and her eyes get hot and wet. “I love you,” she told him, and lowered her head to kiss him viciously, using teeth and tongue to punish him for lying to her for so long.

He groaned into her mouth, and the hand on her foot went to her ass and squeezed hard. His other hand tangled in her hair, adjusting the angle of her head, but not softening the kiss at all.

Breathless, they pulled apart. “I love you, you crazy woman,” he panted into her mouth and dragged her back into a kiss before flipping them.

She wrapped her legs around his waist and rolled her body up into his to make him groan again. His cock was hard against her and it only took a little bit of fumbling with clothes before he was fucking into her right there on the floor.

She couldn’t remember the last time they’d had sex, but apparently they still knew each other’s bodies like they knew death, because it only took him a few thrusts and his thumb hard on her clit before she was coming hard, sinking her teeth into his shoulder.

Given how quickly their fight had finished, they’d broken a surprising amount of things. The couch was ripped open, the side table had been reduced to so much firewood, there was a knife deep in the door. Two lamps were in shards on the floor.

They broke the rest of it fucking.


	3. Chapter 3

A neighbor knocked about noise eventually, but it took longer than Harley expected. Still, they were both naked, sweaty, and covered in bite marks at that point, so she shoved Floyd back onto the whining couch and wrapped herself in the colorful throw before answering the door.

It was an older woman from across the hall. A kindly lesbian who was always inviting Harley to rallies and giving her buttons. Harley liked her, an awful lot.

“Darling,” the woman started, “I know that you’re still young and passionate, and it does the heart good to hear a marriage still doing so well after a few years, but I’m having my sleepy tea now, and I’d like for it to work. Do you think you two could keep it down? Also,” and she clucked and shook her head at this, colorful earrings chiming gently, “that Mr. Nowak called our Debra to complain, so you might want to have an excuse ready for the landlord.”

“Thanks, Althea, we’ll keep it down.” Harley couldn’t keep herself from grinning wide. “How was the protest today?”

Althea sighed dramatically and threw her hands in the air. Her rings caught the light. “If we could get Gotham to care about the environment, we could do anything. Unfortunately, that’s not where the money is. I’m having a few friends over for dinner on Friday, some old queens mostly. Would you and Floyd be interested?”

“I’ll have to check our schedules, but that sounds like fun! If I can, should I bring food or wine?”

“Wine, of course. Who do you think I am?”

“Just trying to be polite, Al, no offense meant!” Harley laughed. 

Althea hmph’ed but she was smiling. “Well, I didn’t mean to tear you from your man for so long. Give him my love, and keep it down.”

“Love you too, Al!” Floyd called and Harley giggled into her fist. Althea rolled her eyes, but shuffled back across the hall with a smile on her face.

Harley swung the door shut and prowled back to the couch, letting the blanket drop, and straddled Floyd slowly. He slid his hands up her thighs and started kneading her ass, but there was no urgency in it. They were both pretty fucked out.

He smiled lazily up at her, and her heart felt overfull. She dropped a kiss on his nose.

“At some point, we should probably talk about our jobs,” he said and she groaned and slid back so she was on top of his dick. Sadly, it only made him hiss, “Too much!” at her, so she had to slide forward again.

“I’d really rather have sex again, if it’s all the same,” she told him.

He palmed one of her breasts. “I’m not disagreeing, but I got offered two million straight up to kill you today. Someone throwing that sort of money around isn’t going to wait patiently for results.”

“Two million? Huh.”

“What?”

“That’s how much I was offered for you.” She focused on his chest instead of his face, playing with one nipple. “Floyd…did you know? About me?”

His hand left her breast to tilt her chin up to meet his eyes. “No, Harley. I didn’t. Did you?”

“No,” she said quietly. “I just liked you, honest.”

He swiped an affectionate finger over her lips. “I like you, too, doll. Now, if we were offered the same amount, on the same day, does that seem suspicious to you? Because it seems suspicious to me.”

She stretched and hopped off him and headed for their bedroom. “You’re right, it’s pretty weird.” She froze in the doorway and darted a look back at him over her shoulder. “Do you think they have eyes on us?”

“Well now I do,” Floyd said, lurching to his feet and following her. “Let’s get dressed and deal with this.”

Once they were both dressed and loaded down with all of the weaponry they each had stashed around the apartment, Floyd caught her hand and made her turn to face him. “Harley…the one that hired me…”

“Spit it out, love bug.”

“It was the Joker.”

Her fingers tingled with the urge to close around the Joker’s throat. She’d thought she’d killed him, six years ago when he took a scalpel to the thin skin under her breasts. She sat on the edge of the bed and put her head between her knees and breathed through the panic attack until they heard an explosion from the living room.

“Shit,” she hissed. Floyd was already opening the window and sliding out. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a fire escape on this window.

He clung to the wall with his fingertips as she waited anxiously for him to move so there was enough space for her to join him. The apartment wasn’t very big, and she could hear the clomp of heavy booted feet getting closer.

Once he’d gotten to the neighbors window, she dove out the window. Floyd was no slouch, seeming perfectly comfortable moving along a decorative ledge only a few inches deep, but Harley had been doing gymnastics since she was two. She clambered up the side of the building, exulting in getting to show off. She stopped not far above their window, and when a man in a mask stuck his head and gun out the window, she kicked down and sent him into the street.

Then she swung back into the apartment, ignoring Floyd snapping her name. There were three more men in her bedroom, rifling through her things.

Harley saw red.

By the time Floyd was back in the room, she was done. The intruders were taking their last, rattling breaths, and she was panting and covered in other people’s blood.

He whistled, low and long. “Damn girl.”

She forced a smile and tossed her hair. “You can get the next ones.”

He did. There were another three in the open plan kitchen/living room, and he took them out before she could blink, neat holes sprouting in heads.

She licked her lips. “You really never miss, do you?”

He holstered his gun. “Haven’t yet.”

That was pretty hot, if she was honest, but this probably wasn’t the time. “Well, dumpling, I think it’s about time to blow this popsicle joint,” she said, instead of ripping his clothes off.

He grinned at her. “I think you’re right, sugar.”

Neither of them had a car, and public transportation seemed like a mistake, so Harley took a moment to wipe the blood off her face before they hit the street. It was too bad they couldn’t get to go to dinner at Althea’s, but there was a man they needed to kill.

“Where’s Zoe?” she asked, as they fell into step on the street.

“At her mom’s. I told her that her mom had been begging for time with her lately, and she should stay there until I called. I think she knows something’s up.”

“I think she’s at her girlfriend’s,” Harley told him.

Floyd sighed. “At least she can’t get pregnant.”

Harley slapped his shoulder. “That’s the spirit! Now, do you have any idea where we’re going?”

“You know,” he said, “it was all done via phone.”

“Same,” she said. “But…Pam was the one that got the job. She might know something I don’t.”

“You trust her?”

Harley laughed bitterly. “Not anymore, I don’t. But I can’t think of anything else we could do. Can you?” It was half rhetorical, half hopeful. She didn’t want to have to confront someone she’d thought was a friend.

When Floyd didn’t respond immediately, she scanned the crowd more closely. J wasn’t known for his subtlety but that didn’t mean she could get lazy.

Eventually he squeezed her hand. “So that abusive ex of yours was the Joker, wasn’t he?”

Her head tic’ed to the side. She tried to turn it into a nod, but wasn’t very convincing, if Floyd’s face was anything to go by. “Got it in one, honey bun.”

His eye twitched and jumped, and his hand was tight and warm around hers. “I tried to track him down, you know. The alias that you gave for him. I was gonna kill him. It’ll feel good to finish that.”

Her mouth dropped open a little and she had to swallow and blink. “I’m glad I married you,” she informed him. “Best call I’ve ever made, probably, and I make really good decisions.”

“Yeah?” He cut an amused look at her. Luckily — no, it wasn’t luck. It was why she loved him. He didn’t call her on it, didn’t make any comments about running away to join the circus. “Glad I made the cut.”

She smiled at him. A flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. Yanked him down. The sharp retort of a gun, once, twice, three times, already moving. The crowd was clearing fast around them, which meant less cover. Scuttled over to the nearest building, Floyd on her heels. The door was locked opened with a merry tinkle. A Chinese take-out.

“Coming through!” she shouted, leading the charge through the kitchen — dodged bewildered cooks — and out the back, into the alley. They glanced around together, and then Floyd caught her arm and pulled her away.

They ran for what felt like hours, through alleys and buildings, up and down streets in the thickest crowds, until they were miles from their apartment and both out of breath.

Locked in the bathroom of a Starbucks, ignoring the impatient noises of the line outside as Floyd washed his face in the sink, Harley called Pam.


	4. Chapter 4

When they made it to Pam’s apartment, she opened the door, her permanent scowl even deeper than normal. Behind her, Floyd made a small noise. Pam’s glare got worse. “What?” she snapped.

“Nothing,” he said. Pam stayed in the door, not letting them in. Plants started rustling behind her. “I just didn’t know you were black. You’re always green on camera, you know? I’m gonna tell Zoe. She’ll be really excited.”

“Oh.” Pam’s gaze flicked up and down him. Harley twisted her fingers together behind her back and hoped. “Okay.” She stepped back and Harley and Floyd slid in.

Pam’s apartment was covered in plants. They hung from the ceiling, they covered every flat surface, and they were all vibrant and fragrant. It could be overwhelming, but it was also one of the most beautiful places in Gotham. Pam was clearly uncomfortable with having a stranger and a man in her space, and although they weren’t all rustling, the ones closest to her reached out and brushed her with leaves and fronds and flowers.

“So. We were double crossed.” Pam clicked her tongue. “I don’t know much more about him than what I told you.” Her face faltered for a second, losing the hard lines. “I never would’ve taken the job if I knew it was the Joker.”

“Pam,” Harley said, quietly. “It’s — it’ll be okay. It isn’t, right now, but I’m not mad at _you_.”

Pam nodded sharply and her face went hard again. “We only talked on the phone, and he didn’t speak to us directly. A lackey, I assume,” she said, voice dripping with disdain. “He told us about Floyd, and that Floyd knew who you were, and that you were in danger. He played us.”

Harley would have doubted her, but the anger on her face was turned in as much as out.

 

They gathered what information Pam had, and then Harley sank into the mind of the woman she hadn’t been for years.

When she rose back out, Floyd’s fingers were laced with her own and Pam had left a mug of soothing tea in front of her, steam still rising gently.

She licked her lips and grasped the mug with her free hand. “I think…I think this is a message to me. He didn’t expect us to actually kill each other — sending his men after us says that. I think.” She stopped and took a sip to give herself time to breathe. Floyd squeezed her hand. “I think he just wanted me to know that he found me. That I can’t get away. He probably wants me to find him. So he’s probably at the circus.”

Pam, practical, coldblooded Pam, said, “We could send the Bat after him.”

It was tempting, not to have to face him herself, but. “The Bat’ll only throw him in Arkham again. I want him _dead_.”

“Well,” said Floyd. “That’s easy enough.” His tone was uncertain, wavering between sarcasm and honesty, which was pretty much how Harley felt, when it came down to it.

 

In the end, that wasn’t a bad way to sum it up. Pam came with them, and Selina, snarling, claws out. He was surrounded by men in masks, all the stupid twenty-something white boys that flocked to his bullshit. As many of them as there were, as many guns as they had, they all died just as easy as anyone else. A few ran, and they were allowed to escape, but not Him. Not the Joker.

She’d never been close to Floyd’s work before today, and attacking the circus was different from the shitshow in their apartment. He was lethal and lovely and he shot the Joker twice in the forehead from a hundred feet away.

Watching the man who’d tortured her crumple to the floor made something in her head go quiet. She couldn’t remember the rest of the fight, but Pam told her what had happened when she asked.

By the time she was aware of what was happening around her, she was in the bath at Selina’s place, the water hot around her hips and Floyd working shampoo into her hair, voice low and soothing as he talked nonsense, an unbroken string of endearments as he talked her through the process of getting clean.

She looked at her hands. There was no blood under the nails or in the nail beads, or the lines of her hands, but when she flexed them she could feel the crack-crunch of swinging her bat into someone’s face.

“You with me, Harley-girl?” she heard, so she looked up at him.

His face was soft and open and she was overwhelmed with love. She cupped his face and kissed him gently. “Right here, Floydy-boy.”

He wrinkled his nose. “That’s bad.”

“It is,” she admitted and admired the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled at her. He was so beautiful. Soft lips, soft eyes, eyebrows that turned in with worry too often. His kindness only made him more beautiful.

She scrambled to her knees, sloshing water onto the floor and pulled him to her again, kissing him again and again, desperate to know that they were together, that they were alive, that no one would ever try to separate them again.  “Join me,” she breathed against his lips between kisses and he nodded, shucking his clothes and climbing in behind her.

The addition made the water splash out again, but Harley was pretty sure Selina wouldn’t hold it against them, and as she leaned against Floyd’s chest and turned her face into his neck, she couldn’t find it in herself to care.

His hands traced up and down her arms, her ribs and chest and waist, checking for himself that she was there, really there. There was no heat to it, no urgency, so she didn’t feel like she was breaking a mood when she said, “Have you called Zoe?”

“Yeah,” he said and made a noise of frustrated love. “She _is_ at her girlfriend’s, you were right. I figure I can’t be too mad, though. I wouldn’t want to go to her mom’s either.”

“I should hope so!” Harley laughed, relieved more than amused. “What did you tell her?”

“That I’d tell her in person,” he said and laughed himself. “I think we’re gonna have to be honest with her.”

“That might be hard for her. She’s a good kid.”

“Yeah,” he said, “but she’s a smart kid too. She already suspects, you know. About me, at least. I think you’re just wild Harley.”

“That’s not wrong,” Harley said, as if admitting a great secret and he laughed and pressed a kiss behind her ear.

“I do love you,” he said.

She sighed happily and resettled herself against his chest. “Do you think we need to do any more marriage counseling?”

He laughed, a surprised bark. “Why not? Make sure it sticks. You wanna start doing jobs together?”

“Mm, and cheat on my girls?” She pretended to think for a moment. “I suppose I could be convinced.” His hand started to slip down her stomach and under the water.

“Yes,” she said. “I could be convinced like _that_.”

 

They went back to marriage counseling, to make sure it stuck. It had. It did. They didn’t go back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this would have been done sooner but i got very frustrated after receiving a comment that asked for me to write another seven chapter fic from someone who had not reviewed anything else and said nothing about my actual writing. that's a minimum of seven hours of a labor, likely much more, without any acknowledgement of the hours i have already put in, which is frustrating! however, i still love the quinnshot fandom and did not want to leave this unfinished.
> 
> also i hate writing action and if i'd written out the fight scene this would not have been finished before the new year.
> 
> anyway, happy holidays. stay safe and healthy in the new year.


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